Abstract

Book synopsis: Resonant Bodies, Memories, Voices orbits around the subjects of memory, voice and the body - more specifically around instances where our habitual abilities to sense, remember, and speak are somehow disrupted or suspended. Such shifts and ruptures may occur through experiences such as living under an oppressive regime, migration, trying to make oneself understood in a foreign language, or through physical inhibitions like aphasia or stuttering. It is exactly at moments when we struggle with memory, when language fails us or our voice breaks, when our bodies are affected by inhibitions or prohibitions, that it becomes pertinent what values we attach to memory, voice and the body, and what roles they have in shaping our subjectivity and our status as subjects.
It has become common to understand memory, voice and even bodily knowledge and sensations as something we not simply have, but something we do. But when the ability to remember, feel or speak gets disrupted, even this sense that we are engaged in doing - in interacting with and acting in the world - becomes a question. What happens to our sense of self and our relation to others when we try to relate to places where we are not, to a voice that does not seem to be our own, or to a body that we don't seem to be in control of?